Earlier this month, Virgin Galactic acquired full ownership of The Spaceship Company, which was previously 40% owned by Scaled Composites. The announcement was made quietly, after close of business on a Friday afternoon prior to a Monday holiday while SpaceX was dominating industry headlines with an ISS resupply mission.

In retrospect, it appears that Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites were contemplated a separation for several months ahead of the announcement.

It’s also worth noting that there is no mention of LauncherOne on the Scaled Composites website. This raises some interesting questions about the team that’s developing LauncherOne. The TSC website seems to be down at the moment, but The Spaceship Company has seven job openings listed on Linkedin. None appear to be directly related to LauncerOne, however.